Arun Jaitley, Union minister without portfolio, on Sunday said that his medical treatment at a US hospital was “all over” but hinted he might not be able to return to India in time to reply to the budget debate in Parliament.

Jaitley, 66, had to fly to the US last month because of an undisclosed illness. Railway minister Piyush Goyal, who was given temporary charge of the finance ministry, presented the interim budget on February 1.

Jaitley had said on budget day that he would return to India soon. But he told PTI here on Sunday that though he was on course to recovery, it’s his doctors who would decide when he might return to India.

“It depends on… my treatment here, which is all over. I am on the recovery course. It’s when my doctors allow me to go back. As of present, as I understand, Piyush Goyal will be replying (to the budget debate in Parliament),” he said.

Neither Jaitley nor the government has commented on the nature of his illness but reports suggest the minister had soft-tissue cancer and needed surgery.

During Sunday’s interview, Jaitley hinted that the Rs 6,000 annual dole announced for small and marginal farmers in the interim budget might be increased in the future as the government’s resources grow.

He said the states had a responsibility to top this up with their own income-support schemes, and urged Opposition-ruled states to flout party line, if necessary, to join hands with the Centre on this.

He chided Congress president Rahul Gandhi for ridiculing the scheme by describing it as a Rs 17-a-day dole, saying: “I think he needs to grow up. He must realise that he is contesting a national election, not a college union one.”

Jaitley said the cash scheme for an estimated 12 crore farmers who own land up to 2 hectares was aimed at addressing farm distress.

He listed the government’s other such measures: housing, subsidised food, free health care and hospitalisation, free sanitation and electricity, roads, gas connections and a doubling of credit at cheap rates.

“In addition to the fertiliser subsidy — another big amount — the health care, cheap ration, over a dozen other things you are spending on. This is just an add-on, this (income-support scheme) is not something being thrown in the air. The Congress doesn’t understand it because it did nothing,” he said.

Jaitley added: “This is the first year where it (the farmer income-support scheme) has begun. I’m sure (that) as the government’s resources improve, this can be increased.”

Told that the scheme excluded nearly 15 crore landless farmers, he said they were eligible for the benefits of the rural employment guarantee scheme and other welfare measures for rural India.

“What is the biggest thing that the Congress claims that they ever did? (Former UPA finance minister) P. Chidambaram announced a Rs 70,000-crore farm loan waiver... (but the) actual distributed was only Rs 52,000 crore,” he said.

“(The) CAG said a large part of that money went to traders and businessmen and converted itself into a fraud.”

The present government, Jaitley claimed, is “starting off over and above the lakhs of crores we are putting into rural areas”.

“We are starting off with Rs 75,000 crore a year (under the farmers’ income-support scheme) and I foresee this amount increasing in the years to come,” he said.

“And if the states top it up -— some states have already started with the scheme (and) I think the others must emulate them — it will increase.”

Jaitley said the state governments too had a responsibility to address farm distress by bringing in their own income-support schemes.

“Some state governments have started it. So my advice to what I call the ‘Nawabs of Negativity’ (a term Jaitley has used to describe some Opposition leaders) is, ‘Ask your own state governments to top it up with their own income-support schemes’,” he said.

“Ideally, like the GST, this is a case where all political parties must defy party lines and in the spirit of cooperative federalism, have a Centre-plus-state scheme.”

Jaitley said that most of the central schemes were funded 60:40 by the Centre and the states. So, “let us enhance this (income-support scheme) to 60:40 in the spirit of cooperative federalism” and instead of “giving criticism, let the states give 40 (per cent)”, he said.

On Chidambaram’s remark that the interim budget was an “account for vote” and not a “vote on account”, Jaitley said: “I have no problem with monies being spent on either of these two accounts. But I have a serious problem when monies go into personal accounts.” He said the comments from Congress leaders and “some other compulsive contrarians” indicated that they lacked understanding of the subject.

“Others have been in power much longer than we have been and did nothing. There is a real problem in India, both with regard to the urban-rural divide, which is reflective of the quality of life available in rural areas, and the state of agriculture. You have to look at both these issues compositely,” he said.

Jaitley added that the Congress coined slogans like “garibi hatao (remove poverty)” but delivered very little. The current government, he said, had adopted a two-pronged approach to addressing farm distress: raising the expenditure on rural infrastructure and raising farm incomes.

Jaitley had undergone a renal transplant on May 14 last year at AIIMS, New Delhi, with Goyal filling in for him at that time too. Jaitley, who had stopped attending office since early April, was back in the finance ministry on August 23.

Earlier, in September 2014, he had had bariatric surgery to correct the weight he had gained because of a longstanding diabetic condition.